I had never been to North Carolina before so when Aarti and Will asked if I wanted to join them during their annual visit there to see friends and to catch the NU vs. Duke game, I figured why the heck not? The city has gotten some good buzz as being friendly and hip given that it's got a booming college town and lots of working professionals in the Research Triangle area. We stayed with Will's friends from college who were the nicest people ever (is that what happens when you live in the South?) and luckily for me, his wife is a pastry chef! So they knew all the great places to eat in the area.
We spent Saturday afternoon at their local farmer's market which was great. I love that kind of stuff. It's was huge and had tons of stalls as well as food trucks and it seemed like the place to be on a Saturday afternoon. Even though everything looked great, we got lunch at Rise Biscuits and Donuts which is a brick and mortar place right next to the market. It's tiny and doesn't have any seating but don't let that deter you. You can order at a kiosk or at the counter - we chose kiosk since the line was shorter. As you can imagine with a name that has biscuits and donuts in it, it's all about the biscuits and donuts here. You can make your own biscuit sandwich or they have ones that you can choose from. I went for a traditional sandwich of sausage, egg and cheese on a biscuit and Aarti got a version with fried green tomato on it. Will was the only one who got a donut - maple bacon bar of course! The wait can be kind of long but it is totally worth it.
Like I said, they don't have any tables inside but they have a few benches outside. I don't know how anyone can wait to take this home and eat it because we were practically tearing through the bag when we got our order. This is Southern food at it's best. The biscuit was fluffy and moist and extremely hearty. The sausage and egg was a perfect salty combination with the sweetness of the biscuit. I was afraid 1 sandwich wasn't going to be enough food but it is plenty of food - don't be fooled. I didn't try the donut but it looked amazing. While this is not the kind of food you should eat on a regular basis, it's definitely the kind of food I wish I could eat on a regular basis and not drop dead at 50. I'm glad they don't have these in NYC otherwise I would have a real problem on my hands. And what's even better? The price. Total bill: $24 for 3 people with tax and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
Mothers and Sons Trattoria 107 W. Chapel Hill St, Durham, NC 27701
Having a pastry chef friend in the area was amazing because clearly she's plugged into the food scene in Durham, so I completely trusted her choice of going to Mothers and Sons for dinner on Saturday night. Given how small Durham is, you could tell that this was one of THE places to be - as it was packed to the gils on Saturday. We were a fairly large party of 9, so we got a big communal table in the back but luckily the acoustics were pretty decent that we could still hear the person sitting next to us.
Since there were so many of us at the table, we essentially ordered one of everything off the menu. The men at the other end of the table got a lot of meat focused dishes like the rabbit and porchetta, while the end of the table I sat at had more vegetarians and we got more pasta focused dishes. I won't list off everything we had because (1) I can't remember it and (B) everything we had was great. But I will call out in particular that the squid ink pasta with uni and shrimp ($13) was truly outstanding, the arancini was fantastic and the artichoke salad with trumpet mushrooms creative and incredible. While we all shared family style there were definitely dishes that were so good that I wish I could have had them all on my own. All the pastas were home made and perfectly executed. If there were any just ok dishes, I would say I've had better polenta and I'm generally never really impressed with bruschetta in general. The waitress was super friendly and knowledgable (she directed me to the squid ink pasta over the rigatoni that I originally ordered).
Overall it was a really lovely night out with great food and friends. A lot of people at the table were saying how they were ultimately looking to retire in Durham because of the cheaper cost of living and general slower pace of life. I can see the appeal and with restaurants like this, I get it...although the overall lack of diversity and extreme slowness of life might be a bit much for me but restaurants like this do make you see that living outside of NYC can still be fun and delicious too. My only concern with the city is that there aren't too many other places like this in the area and one can only eat at the same fantastic restaurant so many times before getting bored but if this is what's like to be bored, it might not be such a bad thing. Total bill: $76/pp with tax, tip and wine
Photo Credit: Yelp
No comments:
Post a Comment